Five Minutes to Midnight
by KatanaDoshi
Summary: Owen contemplates his situation and learns he's not as expendable as he thought. Rated PG13 for language.


Rated for language.

Spoilers for Season 2.

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><p>For long time it had been little more than a game to him. Who would guess that behind that pale and wooden man was the infamous trickster? Titania might have known, but there was never any indication that she did. Even Oberon had been surprised, though he'd been a tad distracted at the time.<p>

Owen looked over the side of Castle Wyvern and down to the streets below. It had been easy being Owen, if a tad boring, while he'd served Halycon Renard. It had been even easier when he'd started serving Xantos.

"_They were many things, but never boring."_

And then Alex had happened. Damn Fox for getting knocked up. Owen gritted his teeth and rested his stone fist on a parapet. And damn him for his loyalty. David Xanatos was the closest thing to a friend either Owen or Puck could claim as a friend, but he wasn't worth giving up Avalon. Never to sample her pleasures again. Eternally banished.

In the days afterward it had been hard, harder than anything he'd ever done before, to maintain that mask. Cut off from his magic there was no place for the daily frustrations to be channeled. Suddenly his body had wants. It had _needs. _The Puck ate because he wanted to, not because he would collapse if he didn't. The Puck slept to waste time, not because he had to or face some rather alarming hallucinations after a few days without.

Owen had eaten and slept to make the mask more complete. Inhumanly stiff and distant though Owen Burnet was, he ate and drank and slept just like everyone else. He'd gotten away with the bare minimum before, relaying on magic to sustain him through twenty-four hour work days with only a banana in his stomach for sustenance.

He'd been just as surprised as Xanatos the Wednesday after Oberon had attacked when Owen had fallen asleep at his desk, face imprinted with the shape of a paperclip and it had been strange and difficult for both of them to find away to schedule in time for Owen to take care of basic human needs without losing productivity.

It had been really weird when Owen found himself staring at interns in short skirts.

The realization had been sudden and alarming, and Owen had spent ten minutes berating himself for the weakness and wondering just how long he'd been doing _that_ before he'd looked down and realized something else. Worst day ever.

The Puck had never wanted for companionship of any sort, ever. Owen Burnet had never _had_ companionship of any sort, ever. He found himself suddenly very sympathetic toward the gargoyle Brooklyn.

It was very hard to maintain a perfectly blank mask when the inside wasn't so blank anymore and it was hard for him to care about maintaining it when everything else was just so horrible.

Never to set foot on Avalon's shores again. Never to sample her pleasures again. He thought of the people he would miss and that would miss him but found the list depressingly short. Coyote, probably, would find things boring without Puck wandering about, but he would get over it. Everyone would get over it.

Owen rested the side of his face next to his fist. Though summer was a ways off (and what a pathetic excuse for a summer it was, when compared to the ones he'd once known), he was hot. He couldn't make his skin as cool as he once could, not unless he wanted to teach Alex how to mess with other people's bodily functions. He winced and decided that it would be better not to give an infant that kind of power.

It could all be put to an end of course. The annoying needs, the uncontrollable urges, all over. He looked over the side of the building again. An undignified and messy end, but an end. Owen couldn't stop himself in mid-fall like Puck could. Certainly a gargoyle _might_ catch him and then he would have to explain what he was doing, walking off of roof-tops like that. Xanatos would be upset.

Damn him for his loyalty.

/

Xanatos met him at the front door of the Eyrie Building three hours after Owen left it, possibly for the first time since Demona had kidnapped the Puck. The once-and-possibly-future villain gave his assistant a concerned look and Owen found he could only stare blurrily back.

"Owen? Are you alright?" It wasn't the sort of question David Xanatos would normally ask. Owen looked into the middle distance over Xanatos' right shoulder.

"Yes," he frowned and reconsidered his answer, looking back into his employer's (ha! Master more like, now that Oberon had no need for Puck) face. "No."

The two conflicting answers were unexpected and the conviction with which Owen had delivered them probably didn't help. Xanatos frowned, putting a hand on his pale friend's shoulder and was surprised when the usually reserved man leaned some of his weight into it.

"Owen, what happened?"

"I found a liquor store," Owen answered vaguely. Xanatos' frown deepened.

"A liquor store," he repeated, trying to meet his friend's drifting gaze. Owen nodded. "Well?"

"I drank it," the statement was so candid and so out of character that Xanatos pulled back in surprise. Apparently the one hand had been supporting more weight than he'd thought because Owen promptly began to tip over.

"Are you drunk?" Xanatos grabbed the other man by the shoulders and Owen stopped teetering.

"Probably. I don't know. Never been drunk before."

"Oh Owen…" Xanatos shook his head and put his arm around Owen's shoulders, steering the man toward the elevator. "Alright, let's get you upstairs."

Owen didn't want to go upstairs. He wasn't even sure he wanted to be in the building, but he hadn't been able to think of anywhere else he could go after his adventures in shopping. He pulled away and almost fell down when his left foot disagreed with him about the direction they were headed in. Xanatos caught his arm and, more steady now, Owen pulled it out of the other man's grasp.

"You would get over it too," he said accusingly, his eyes narrowed. Xanatos blinked at him.

"I would get over what, exactly?"

"Me," Xanatos blinked again and Owen decided he would have to elaborate. "If I were gone."

They were drawing attention. As late as it was, the Eyrie Building was never completely empty and the security personnel were taking an interest in the two higher-up's conversation.

"Owen-"

"I gave up my left arm for you, you bastard!" _That_ got a few curious looks. Xanatos sighed and took Owen by the shoulders again.

"I would not get over you. You are one of the most important people in my life…" he got a sly look in his eye that a sober Owen would have immediately taken note of. "And no one asked you to give up your arm. You did that all by yourself."

Owen sputtered and, distracted, allowed himself to be led into the elevator. It seemed pointless to struggle now, so he didn't. Xanatos stopped the elevator about four floors from the main floor of the castle and turned to look at him.

"Owen, what's wrong?" The pale man slumped and Xanatos worried that he would collapse, but Owen's feet stayed firmly planted.

"I'm just…" there weren't words for it. The pain at knowing he was never going home, at being so lost in the body he was trapped in. Macbeth had said it best. "I'm just so tired."

Xanatos, clearly worried, hesitantly restarted the elevator.

"I almost walked off the edge of the castle tonight," Owen announced calmly. The elevator stopped again and Xanatos viciously stabbed at the key pad next to the floor buttons. He was turning off the camera, Owen realized after a moment.

"Why would you…?"

"I didn't think anyone would notice," Owen admitted quietly. They were both silent for a moment.

"I'm pretty sure the people driving by the building would have noticed, Owen," a poor attempt at humor but Owen understood that Xanatos only said it because he was having trouble finding a more sensitive way to express himself.

"Probably," and they were quiet again.

"Was there… someone on Avalon that…"

"No," but he was thinking of flowing hair and a teasing look. _("Either I mistake your shape and making quite…. Or you're that shrewd and knavish sprite, called Robin Goodfellow. Are you not he?")_ "There's no one."

Xanatos gripped Owen's stone wrist, and Owen looked him in the eye for the first time that night.

"There's me," there was nothing hidden in the other man's gaze. No plans, no schemes, no manipulation; just a genuine concern for a friend. Owen's eyes burned and he looked down, ashamed. How could he assume that their relationship was a one way thing? That Owen was replaceable to Xanatos even if Xanatos were all Owen had left.

"Forgive me sir, I-"

"You're an idiot," Xanatos interrupted, starting the elevator again for the last time that night. "But I love you anyways."

End.

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><p>Author's Note: Xanatos' comment at the end is meant platonically, but if your slash goggles are permanent you can take that anyway you want.<p>

Challenge!: "I found a liquor store." "I drank it."

That little exchange is not originally mine. First person to review with the name of the show I got that from and the name of the character that said it gets a one-shot, any main character, pairing, genre, plot and/or rating you want from Gargoyles, Batman (comics), Stargate, Stargate Atlantis, Mighty Ducks (cartoon), Darkwing Duck, or Invader Zim.

Happy hunting.


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